[Alex3917]

"Buddha himself never claimed he was enlightened through meditation."

He claimed he was enlightened by following the four noble truths, of which meditation is one component. It might not be possible to achieve enlightenment through only meditation, but it's probably not possible to achieve enlightenment without meditation either.

[blueprint]

What are the four noble truths, in short?

[Alex3917]

The relevant one in this case would be the 8-fold path, which has right mindfulness and right concentration as two of its steps.

[blueprint]

I see that you understand these as steps to be enlightened and perfect oneself, but these are not the things that the saints practiced before becoming Enlightened, but rather afterwards. The reason is that you already need to have a very high level of consciousness before you can distinguish right and wrong correctly - it can't be practiced until you've already realized.